TV anchor drops on-air F-bomb—in his first telecast

Sunday was his first night on the anchor desk at KFYR-TV, the NBC affiliate in Bismarck, N.D., and within his first 30 seconds on the air, Clemente dropped an F-bomb and an S-bomb. Today, the station fired him.

KFYR-TV News Director Monica Hannan issued her own apology, as well as an explanation, on the station’s Facebook page:

“To all of you who are writing in ... I want to apologize for an incident that occurred prior to our early newscast this evening, when one of our employees used profanity on the air.

“He did not realize his microphone was on, but still, that's no excuse. WE train our reporters to always assume that any microphone is live at any time. Unfortunately, that was not enough in this case. WE can't take back what was said. The person involved has been suspended until we resolve the situation. All we can do at this point is ask for your forgiveness, and I can offer my personal assurance that I will do my best to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again under my watch.”

Most of the nearly 1,000 comments to the post, as well as the many tweets and retweets today, are supportive of Clemente.

On Monday morning, however, Clemente tweeted:

Unfortunately KFYRTV has decided to let me go. Thank you to them and everyone in ND for the opportunity and everyone for the support.